


To Err Is Human

by SkysongMA



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Community: Do It With Style Events, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkysongMA/pseuds/SkysongMA
Summary: Aziraphale took his plate and Crowley's and laid them out just so before speaking again. "I'm merely saying... wouldn't it be pleasant to have a place for both of us? My books, your plants, maybe a set of big chairs?""You want to move in together?" he asked in a tone he was only beginning to learn to use, one that peeled away all the stuff and nonsense usually involved in a conversation with Aziraphale. They were safe now, after all. The Arrangement was a thing of the past, like Armageddon itself. They could do whatever they liked, and sometimes what he liked was speaking to Aziraphale with all his usual filters turned off.Aziraphale's cheeks pinked, as they always did whenever Crowley used this tone. "Well, yes, I suppose if you want to put it that way." He stuffed a piece of sashimi in his mouth, but Crowley took this for what it was and didn't say anything until Aziraphale swallowed. "We'd still keep our own places, of course. But... at the end of the day... we could come home to each other."Now Crowley was the one turning red. "I'd like that," he mumbled around his glass of sake. "I'd like that very much."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 51
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	To Err Is Human

**Author's Note:**

> The lovely art that inspired this fic was done by Perhapsormaybe, who you can also find on Tumblr at Perhapsitmaybedragons. Thank you for being such a great partner to work with.
> 
> FYI, this fic involves Crowley and Aziraphale talking about a wedding, but not an actual depiction of the wedding. I wanted to mention that here in case it would turn people off. My partner and I can't currently get married, so I didn't feel like writing out the wedding scene, just the nice parts leading up to it.

It all started with a house. 

"I just think it's a bit silly, the two of us having separate spaces and no place to be together," said Aziraphale, who had a habit of picking up conversations like Crowley hadn't been invited to the first half.

After all the centuries, Crowley was used to this, though, and finding the lines of his thought came naturally. "What's the matter with my flat, then? I've got a bed." He'd upgraded it and everything, and he and Aziraphale spent pleasant nights there, him snoring into the pillow and Aziraphale reading by the light of the lamp Crowley had put there specifically for that purpose. Aziraphale had the bookshop to run, but Crowley… Crowley had nothing to do, and he rather liked it that way. No more interruptions to his music while he drove. No more meetings in dark cemeteries. No more anything at all. It was amazing.

"Yes, but it's quite a bit away from the bookshop, isn't it? And I suppose I could make the bookshop into some place we could both—sleep, but..." He trailed off. Crowley heard the rest of the sentence he wasn't saying: _but I would really rather pull all my teeth out individually._

"I like my place, though. Maybe it's not your vibe, but it's mine."

"Vibe?" said Aziraphale, as though Crowley had suddenly switched into medieval French. Or something more obscure. Aziraphale spoke excellent medieval French.

"You know, the... aesthetic." Crowley gestured around, though they were at one of those sushi places with the conveyor belt, waiting for their orders, not at his flat. "The glass and steel. My big chair—love that big chair. And my plants. Can't leave the devils alone for a day."

"Well, I'm not saying you have to get rid of it. That'd be like asking you to sell the Bentley." 

Crowley almost snapped his chopsticks in half at the thought.

Anticipating, as always, the exact moment their order came to them, Aziraphale tucked his napkin into his shirt. He took his plate and Crowley's and laid them out just so before speaking again. "I'm merely saying... wouldn't it be pleasant to have a place for both of us? My books, your plants, maybe a _set_ of big chairs?"

Crowley finally caught wind of what he meant. This time, he _actually_ snapped his chopstick in half. "You want to move in together?" he asked in a tone he was only beginning to learn to use, one that peeled away all the stuff and nonsense usually involved in a conversation with Aziraphale. They were safe now, after all. The Arrangement was a thing of the past, like Armageddon itself. They could do whatever they liked, and sometimes what he liked was speaking to Aziraphale with all his usual filters turned off.

Aziraphale's cheeks pinked, as they always did whenever Crowley used this tone. "Well, yes, I suppose if you want to put it that way." He stuffed a piece of sashimi in his mouth, but Crowley took this for what it was and didn't say anything until Aziraphale swallowed. "We'd still keep our own places, of course. But... at the end of the day... we could come home to each other."

Now Crowley was the one turning red. "I'd like that," he mumbled around his glass of sake. "I'd like that very much."

***

Buying a house from new, as it turned out, was rather more work than letting London grow around the place you already lived. And it was all bloody boring, even with Newt and Anathema walking them patiently through the process like Crowley and Aziraphale were their grandparents trying to learn to use Zoom. 

(Zoom was another thing Crowley got credit for without actually creating. He wouldn't have been able to make it nearly as frustrating, despite the top-of-the-line laptop sitting on the desk he no longer used in his apartment.)

It was all a lot of paperwork and talking to people and shaking hands and looking blankly at humans when they tried to get the measure of his relationship with Aziraphale. Dull. Dull dull dull.

“I hate how they always address me as Mr. Fell, like I’m the one who would take your name,” Crowley muttered. “I’ve got my own name, and it’s a perfectly good one.” His words were a bit slurred, but he poured himself more wine anyway. As it turned out, Aziraphale had set away many, many bottles against the end of the world, and even they hadn’t had had time to drink all of them before the Armageddon that wasn’t.

“Or as if we’re married,” Aziraphale muttered around the rim of his glass, his lips turned down as if the wine had suddenly become sour.

Which it wasn’t. It was delicious. And even if it was, he could have miracled it sweet again.

No, the problem was marriage, and Crowley was _just_ drunk enough to take this up on point of order. “What’s the matter w’ getting married, then? Thought you lot would be all about that. Sacred rite and everythin’.”

“For humans, yes, but we aren’t human.” He finished his glass of wine, and the little pinched expression remained on his face. “We don’t need things like that.”

Something about his argument struck Crowley as wrong, especially since Aziraphale had been the one to argue for a shared house, a shared life. That seemed far more intimate than any piece of paper signed by a justice of the peace. “We don’t, yeah, but it would make life easier, wouldn’t it? At least, it would make getting the house simpler.”

“It’s nothing to be entered into lightly, Crowley. It _is_ a sacred rite, and I object to the idea of engaging in it for the sake of less paperwork.” Though Aziraphale’s tone was absent, not truly scolding as it might have been before the end of the world, and his free hand was twined with Crowley’s, it still stung, and Crowley still found himself recoiling a bit, though he couldn’t explain why to himself.

Not that he had ever been very good at understanding his own feelings.

“Besides, you’d have to set foot in a church. We’re not having a courtroom wedding.”

That gave Crowley pause. “’Spose you’re right there. Dunno why I didn’t think of that.”

“Because you’re the one who came up with the idea of a secular ceremony in the first place, weren’t you? Gabriel said so.”

“’Course not, I ain’t that clever.” He scratched his chin. “Mighta took credit for it, but I’m not sure. I woke up with a commendation in 1901, but I was still sleepy, so I don’t remember what for. ‘S probably around here somewhere…”

“Well, don’t look for it now. We’ve got all those packed up already, I believe. Have another glass of Shiraz. It won’t keep.”

***

The good news was, with enough money, you could speed the process up significantly, even if it did require just as many signatures. In a month, they were moving their things into a space of their very own. Crowley had to admit, he did like taking more of his art collection out of storage, and he had a much larger room for plant threatening, plus an actual backyard for plant threatening outdoors if he felt so inclined. And Aziraphale immediately filled an entire room with books, humming baroque chamber pieces under his breath the entire time. 

Plus, the moving process was a breeze when you could snap your fingers and have everything you wanted arranged just so. 

"We shoulda done this years ago," he commented, settling himself on the couch behind Aziraphale, who was sitting on the floor.

"Ready, dear?" Crowley made an affirmative noise, and Aziraphale spread his wings. At least he could blame spending all his time in the bookshop for why they were so blessed dusty.

"Honestly, angel," Crowley said, but both of them knew it was habit. The only thing Crowley liked more than cleaning his own wings was cleaning Aziraphale's. "How do you _do_ this? It's only been a week."

Aziraphale was reading a medieval bestiary and only made a vague humming sound around his cup of cocoa. "What did you put in this?" he asked, raising his mug. "It tastes different."

Crowley glanced at the mug. He had done nothing out of the ordinary. "Maybe they changed the brand of milk, I dunno."

"You made it without the foul influence of hell, that's what." Aziraphale craned his head around to make it clear he was joking.

Crowley hissed at him, though not seriously. "Stop wiggling. I've got cleaning to do."

Aziraphale's wings were never lustrous at the best of times. Sure, they were good enough to impress humans, maybe, but so were dime-store aspidestras. Crowley had _standards._

This, though... this was different. Even with Aziraphale's lax grooming, Crowley normally pulled out one or two feathers at best, and the rest simply needed smoothing back into place. "Does your sort molt now? Is that a thing that happens these days in heaven?"

Aziraphale coughed, setting his mug down before he could spill it. On the rug, of course. Crowley was going to have to invest in a thousand coasters. "Of course not. We're cut from the same cloth here, dear boy. Anything I do, you do, even if it's a little different."

"Not anything," Crowley muttered. Another loose feather. That made three. And Aziraphale didn't even notice, which meant they were legitimately loose. He yelped if Crowley plucked one on purpose. Could angels get sick now? Was that an option when Armageddon failed to turn over like a faulty engine?

Well, Aziraphale didn't notice, and Crowley tucked the loose feathers away in his pockets the way he always did. He'd been keeping a collection for as long as they'd been doing this, on and off since sometime around the Norman Conquest. Sentimental, but perhaps it would be useful at last.

He took Aziraphale's half-empty cup before it could grow fur, since Aziraphale was now quite thoroughly lost in his book, as always happened when Crowley helped him groom him, and went to go find his collection.

Sentimental, he thought again as he spread the feathers out in front of him. This wasn't the whole set, either. He had hundreds at this point. Hundreds of times he'd touched Aziraphale in a way he hadn't allowed himself to admit was loving until far too recently. But it was a fairly representative sample.

Here was the thing about angel wings: except for the size, the feathers could have been stamped from a mold, every one identical. Not like bird feathers, where each type had a specific purpose. Most of the feathers were down, but he had a few pinfeathers, the long elegant ones everyone paid attention to. And they were all the same.

Except these new ones. He turned them over in his fingers. They felt... thinner. Lighter. More like bird feathers—feathers from angels and demons were slightly heavier since they paid no attention to the laws of physics and thus didn't have hollow bones.

The new feathers were also grimier, but only because Crowley hadn't yet cleaned them up yet.

What did it mean?

He poked his head out of the room, checking on Aziraphale, but he was still reading, and he would probably keep reading until the heat death of the universe. Or whatever would happen now that God wasn't going to shake the cosmic Etch-a-Sketch.

Crowley ducked into the bathroom and ran the water in the tap to give an excuse for his presence. Then he washed his hands because feathers were oily. Once they were dry, he gave in and spread his own wings.

As always, the sensation filled him with relief, same as a human stretching out a cramp.

No, his wings were glossy and lustrous, like a well-fed raven's, and when he twitched them, no feathers came loose. 

Perhaps in the wake of everything that had happened, Aziraphale had simply neglected himself more than usual. It wouldn't be the first time. Or maybe he'd shook up extra dust or something packing up his oldest, mustiest books. Yes. Absolutely.

***

Crowley did his best to shake off the thoughts roused by Aziraphale's loose feathers, which was surprisingly easy. As it turned out, time spent with Aziraphale meant lovely afternoons puttering around in the garden and even more time spent at extravagant restaurants and very little time to think unpleasant thoughts. They had the house to unpack, after all, and then there was driving them both to and from the house, going grocery shopping instead of merely miracling all the ingredients into place, making them both breakfast, long, luxuriously unnecessary baths in the copper tub...

But he couldn't ignore things entirely because he was starting to notice other strange harbingers as well.

He and Aziraphale didn't have sex terribly often. They didn't need it; it was simply something pleasant to pass the time, like food and sleep, and they usually only ended up having it when they had exhausted all the other things to do on a long weekend.

But now they were around each other all the time, that changed too.

"Did you change your cologne, angel?" Crowley asked, pressing his face into Aziraphale's blond curls. He definitely smelled different, but not in a way Crowley could identify. He found his hand snaking around Aziraphale's waist, seemingly of its own volition.

"I've been using the same cologne since the Romantic period, dear. They don't make it the same anymore," Aziraphale said absently, his nose stuck firmly in his book. "Maybe you simply haven't been paying proper attention."

"Hmmph," Crowley muttered, resting his chin on Aziraphale's shoulder to read. As expected, it was terribly dull, but usually, Crowley would leave him to enjoy it. Only he couldn't seem to get the scent out of his nose. He pressed his lips to the side of Aziraphale's neck, chasing the smell, and Aziraphale started.

"Really, my boy, warn me before you do something like that." But his tone was too light to mean it, and he turned his head to kiss Crowley's mouth. Not in his normal half-disinterested way, to chase Crowley off when he was honestly trying to read, but in the half-interested way that meant he was wondering whether sex would be too much work.

To make the case it would be, in fact, the perfect amount of work, Crowley took the matter firmly in hand and pulled Aziraphale into his lap.

***

Afterward, Crowley still had the strange new scent in his nose, and... "Did that seem odd to you?" he asked, draping his forearm over his forehead. 

Aziraphale lightly stroked his chest. Usually by now he'd be back in every layer, buttoned up and down to the point of insanity—a habit Crowley only tolerated because it was delightful to unwrap him like a present. But, oddly enough, this one time he seemed content to rest his cheek on Crowley's shoulder, his tone warm and pleasantly fuzzy, as if they'd been drinking. "Did it? I feel like it did. Have you been messing about on the dot-coms again?"

Crowley winced instinctively, closing his eyes at the thought of Aziraphale trying to discuss the internet. But he found he couldn't work up a proper strop. His body felt particularly languid and relaxed, as if he'd fallen asleep in a sunbeam. Even teasing Aziraphale felt like too much work when he was soft and warm and the bed was so damn cozy. 

"Porn is all humanity, angel, I keep telling you that." He curled closer to Aziraphale, running his hand over the curve of his hip. "And no, I didn't do anything different, any more than I have with your morning tea, or the bacon, or the cocoa. You know I don't believe in altering perfection."

Humming softly, Aziraphale twirled a strand of Crowley's hair between his fingers. He didn't seem to be paying attention to Crowley's questions or Crowley's answers, but Crowley couldn't seem to make himself care like he ought. He was completely and totally relaxed, and he felt... oddly in tune with himself. Sometimes being a demon still felt like a pair of ill-fitting shoes, and he found himself waking up from long naps expecting to be doing the “white robe and a harp” bit. Every other demon seemed to have understood it perfectly well, but Crowley always felt like a musician who’d showed up late for practice without the sheet music, doing his best to follow along by ear because he didn’t have a choice.

Not now, though. Now he felt tired, but pleasantly so, and a bit peckish, but only enough to look forward to the roast they were having for dinner that night. He’d found out he quite liked cooking. It really did make the food taste more interesting than simply buying it from a restaurant.

"Did you miracle yourself a new haircut when I wasn't looking?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley touched his head instinctively. "Been growing it out, that's all." He'd been thinking fondly of wearing dresses without having to mess with his hair. 

Aziraphale paused, and then his fingers slid from Crowley's hair over to the sharp line of his jaw. Crowley leaned into the touch, resisting the urge to purr like an oversized cat. "You... you have stubble." Aziraphale’s tone changed, shifting away from comfort and warmth to something tighter and more familiar in the worst way. At this point, it had been several months since the apocalypse, and yet part of Crowley still clenched with fear whenever he heard Aziraphale speak like that, certain it was going to be the end of everything all over again. They had all of eternity to look forward to, and he didn’t want to spend it alone.

No, he specifically didn’t want to spend it without Aziraphale.

Crowley opened his eyes to find Aziraphale leaning over him, frowning. "I haven't felt like facial hair in a few decades, you know that." 

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows meaningfully, and Crowley rubbed a hand along his own jaw, meaning merely to indulge him—but the prickle he felt under his fingers didn't lie. He sat up, touching his own hair. It _was_ longer than he expected. He hadn't been consciously changing his appearance, just looking in the mirror and deciding it needed to be longer now and then. But this... this felt almost as if it had been passively growing out on its own. Like...

But Crowley squashed that thought before it could get any further. "Angel, show me your wings."

Aziraphale frowned. He was always a little self-conscious about their untidy state, but he was equally unwilling to do anything to fix it. "What have my wings to do with anything?"

"Just do it, please? Don't argue with me for once."

Aziraphale's mouth turned down, but he moved far enough away to spread his wings without further complaint.

There was no mistaking it this time. The moment he spread them, feathers shook loose, and not just down this time—pinfeathers. Crowley picked one up and turned it between his fingers, as if that would somehow help him make sense of what had happened.

Aziraphale tried and failed to peer around his spread wings. "What is it? What's the matter?"

Mutely, Crowley held out the feather. 

"What in heaven's name—" 

Before he could say anything else, Crowley stood and shook out his own wings. He felt the difference before Aziraphale's sharp intake of breath—bringing them out was harder, somehow, and they felt less like an intrinsic part of him, his own true shape, and more like another ridiculous affectation, like his sunglasses. Not nearly so natural anymore as shopping at the local corner store or paying for gas, things which had once felt so alien.

"My dear," said Aziraphale softly.

Not daring to look in the mirror, Crowley put his wings away, and glanced down at the floor. Several of his own feathers rested there, black as night, the perfect reflection of Aziraphale's.

"What does this mean?" Aziraphale whispered, one hand over his mouth. Crowley hadn't seen him look this distressed since the moment they'd returned from heaven and hell, respectively. Without realizing, he’d gotten used to Aziraphale's complete lack of tension.

Crowley bent and picked up one of his feathers, already anticipating the strangeness. He wasn't disappointed. "It means we need to go talk to Adam, I think."

Aziraphale shivered. Then, deliberately, he put down his hand on the bed. "Yes. But first, you need a shave."

***

Aziraphale had a straight razor and a vintage shaving kit with a custom engraving. "A gift, from a man who's long dead," he said and didn't further elaborate.

Crowley didn't begrudge him. He was simply glad one of them knew how to shave at all. You could find everything on YouTube these days, of course, but there was looking up how to set up your wifi and then there was trying to figure out how to deal with... hair. Humans had so much of it, after all. He liked the stuff on his head, but the rest of it was honestly such a pain. He didn't want to have one more thing to maintain on top of everything else.

Then again, Aziraphale seemed happy to do it, moving in long, confident strokes and humming under his breath. And it was nice to close his eyes and let Aziraphale take care of him. If shaving meant this, then perhaps he liked it after all. So many strange human things had become part of his routine. What was one more?

***

Adam, for the most part, was completely ordinary, the way he'd been completely ordinary his entire life. He was more careful now, maybe, but 11-year-old boys were so completely uncareful that the difference was fine.

Still, he didn't seem surprised to see the two of them sitting on a bench in Tadfield's main park, looking out over the lake, and for once, he was alone instead of with the rest of the Them. "It's the two of you again, then?" he asked, dragging a stick through the dirt, apparently fascinated by the nonsense patterns and nothing else. As always, Dog was with him, digging furiously at the base of a tree.

It wasn't entirely true. The aura of power around him wasn't _as_ overwhelming as it had been once, but it was still there, and it still made Crowley cross-eyed if he tried to concentrate on it overmuch.

It also seemed to take more effort than usual, but maybe he was being paranoid. It wasn’t like he practiced looking for other supernatural beings much, after all. The last thing he wanted was being noticed by an angel or a demon. 

"It's us two again," said Aziraphale, resting his free hand in his lap. His other one was twined with Crowley's in a way which probably looked casual to the outside but belied his absolute death grip. "Sorry, Adam."

"'S'all right. Figure I'll never really get away from this stuff—isn't how it works or whatever. You guys aren't here to tell me they're trying to start it all up again, are you?" He stuck his chin out stubbornly, as if already preparing to fight someone.

"No, 'course not, nothing like that," said Crowley, resting his arm along the back of the bench, as if posing casually would somehow shake off feeling his whole body was filled with bees. He used to feel that way all the time, but lately it had left, and he didn't appreciate having it back. "Nobody's been after you, yeah?"

Adam shook his head. "It's pretty much all the same as it ever was. Just got a lot more to think about, you know?" He dropped the stick so he could hook his thumbs in his pockets, squinting at them. "So what is it, then? You two moving to Tadfield or something? There's a house for sale down the road from mine. I can show you all the best spots."

"We just bought a place in London, sorry to disappoint," said Aziraphale. "No, there's... something else." 

Crowley drew the feathers from the inside pocket of his vest, two white and two black. 

Adam seemed to recognize them immediately, cocking his head to the side in a way that didn't quite match his other motions. "Huh. Those are yours?"

Crowley nodded curtly.

Adam folded his arms, frowning at them in concentration. "I thought there was something different about you guys. Figured maybe I was imagining it, though. It's hard to tell what's real sometimes. You got upstairs and downstairs off your backs, right?"

Crowley didn't question how Adam knew. He was sure Adam knew all sorts of things most people didn't. 

"And what have you been doing since then?"

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who answered instead. "Well, we bought a flat, I suppose. But we haven't been doing much of anything, really."

"You been doing human things?" 

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale again, fairly certain he wasn't supposed to talk about the types of human things they'd been up to, even if the kid in front of them wasn't your typical tween. 

"Well, neither of us have been doing... work, as it were. I've got the bookshop of course, and Crowley..." He cocked his head.

"I've been napping a lot," Crowley supplied. "Didn't realize how much blasted work all that temptation was until I quit."

"Crowley, don't swear in front of the boy."

"S'all right. My dad says worse when his team's losing at football." Adam's frown deepened, but not like he was concerned, more like he was thinking about a complicated problem. An actual complicated problem, not merely something complicated for a preteen. "Well, here's the best I can figure, all right? I'm still not..." His mouth turned down in a truly ferocious scowl. "I'm still not a normal kid, not all the way, not like the rest of the Them. I wanna be, but I don’t think I get to, not really. But I'm getting better at it, though." 

When Dog nosed at his leg, his expression brightened slightly, and he bent down to scratch the terrier's ears. "See, when I'm around the Them, it's easy. I don't think about heaven or hell or Arma-whatsit. I'm just me, the way I always was, and I don't feel all squashed or whatnot. But sometimes, when I'm alone, like today..." His lips thinned, and his expression shifted slightly, making him suddenly seem far more grown than his eleven years. Making him seem almost eternal.

Crowley had been used to that feeling at one point, since it was the way all demons and angels felt all the time. Now it was... disconcerting. Overwhelming. Almost as if he wasn't meant to be feeling it any longer.

Well, he wasn't going to complain about losing this particular part of things, he supposed. 

"When I'm alone, I can feel the whole world moving again," Adam murmured. "Sometimes my brain feels like it's gonna crack right out of my skull, you know?" 

He shook himself slightly. "But when I feel like that, I go downstairs and I sit with Mum in the kitchen, or I text my friends, and it goes away. And it's been happening less and less and time goes on." 

He straightened again, and Dog whined and rested his head on Adam's shoe. "My point is—when I do people stuff, I feel like people, and when I do other stuff, I feel... like something else." He sighed, and though his expression had smoothed back somewhat to normal, the sigh was a old sound. "So I been trying to do as much people stuff as I can. And I think the same thing might be happening to you."

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. Crowley felt totally blank, the idea too enormous for thought, as enormous as the idea of trying to cancel Armageddon altogether. And Aziraphale, who was usually so bad at concealing his feelings, was also a blank page, despite the little pinch of worry around his eyes and mouth.

Adam continued talking, as if he didn't see their total confusion—or maybe as if he did and knew they would need some time to wrap their heads around the concept before they could respond. "See, you've been here on Earth, but you haven't been spending any time with upstairs or downstairs at all. You haven't even been thinking about them. You've been doing people stuff. Nothing but people stuff. And maybe..."

"Maybe we're turning human," said Crowley, because no one else seemed willing to say that part out loud. The unpleasant jobs always fell to him.

Aziraphale's lips pinched, the way they did whenever Crowley said something rude in public, but his expression smoothed when he looked at Adam, who was watching them with his face screwed up, as if worried about their reactions. "Thank you, Adam. You make some excellent points. I'm sorry we interrupted your day."

Adam shrugged, and finally it was only the shrug of a perfectly ordinary little boy. "'S'all right. No worse than any other grownup I know." He toed the ground, then added, "It's not so bad, being human. Better than anything else, if you ask me."

Dog suddenly lifted his head and hared off toward something rustling in the bushes, and Adam ran after him without saying goodbye.

***

The drive back to their house in London was totally quiet. Crowley wanted to put some music on, but he'd spent so long lounging around the house without taking a drive that he knew for a fact all his CDs had turned into Queen, and he'd never gotten around to installing Bluetooth in the Bentley.

It might have been nice, though, if only to get some kind of reaction from Aziraphale, who spent the whole drive staring out the window with a tight little frown on his face. It reminded Crowley too much of so many times before, when Aziraphale would back out and leave and Crowley wouldn't see him for years or decades at a time. They'd just bought a flat together. Surely that wouldn't happen again. 

He didn't speak until they were safely home. Crowley was about ready to explode at that point, but he'd been planning to take it out on his plants. The ficus closest to the door in the sun room had been looking a little peaked.

Then Aziraphale sat down on the couch and patted the spot beside him. He was still frowning, but Crowley took the chance anyway, sitting beside him. Not as close as usual, but not far, either, the way they used to in order to pretend they were only sitting near each other by coincidence. Aziraphale held out his hand, and Crowley took it, twining their fingers together.

When they first made the Arrangement into something more complicated than simply business, a part of Crowley had fancied if he held on tightly enough, Aziraphale would stop slipping through his fingers. He hated feeling that way again.

Aziraphale sighed.

"Are you gonna say anything?" Crowley demanded at last, unable to keep his voice from cracking. "You're killing me here."

Aziraphale's expression didn't change, but he squeezed Crowley's hand. "Crowley, I gave up heaven for you. I would appreciate a bit of your patience while I think this through."

Crowley could have pointed out how long it took Aziraphale to do just that, but then he would be picking a fight because he was nervous, not because a fight needed to be picked. He moved closer to Aziraphale, hating how cautious he felt, and Aziraphale leaned against him, which helped. 

"It will be an adjustment," said Aziraphale at last. "If we really are turning human, I mean. I thought we would have all of eternity, and that's why I waited so long." His lips trembled. "More the fool I, of course. If I had known how this would end, I would have thrown heaven to the wind years ago to give me more time with you."

"We're not dead yet, angel," Crowley pointed out, daring to feel cautiously optimistic now.

Aziraphale lifted their joined hands and brushed his lips over Crowley's knuckles, the furrow between his brows deepening. "No, we aren't, but death was never supposed to be an option at all." 

"There are worse things." Crowley nudged him gently, hope slowly spooling out of his heart like a frozen stream beginning to flow again. "And this way we never have to worry about them trying to dig us out of retirement, eh?"

"There is that." Aziraphale looked at him, and the furrow between his brows eased as he stared into Crowley's eyes. Crowley stroked his thumb across Aziraphale's hand, waiting for him to voice whatever revelation he was having. "I always thought I would only ever have eternity alone, you know, and maybe I was silly for not seeing the truth earlier, but you remember how it was." He reached out to trace the sharp angle of Crowley's cheekbones. "It would hardly be such a terrible thing, growing old with you. Like a real old married couple."

"That a proposal, angel?"

Aziraphale huffed. "Not hardly. I haven't bought a ring." He smiled, slowly, hand still resting on Crowley's cheek. "I suppose I'd better get to it if we have a time limit. There are worse things in the world, and if we’re truly human, I can hardly have us living in sin." He drew Crowley down for a kiss, and there really were so many worse things in the world.

***

It happened slowly and then all at once, like falling in love was supposed to. (Crowley had been smitten from the first, but Aziraphale said it had worked that way for him.)

Part of Crowley never fit properly into a human form, and that feeling never entirely went away, but he stopped feeling like he wanted to be a snake. Instead, it was merely a question of choosing a dress over trousers or some other, more arcane combination of clothing to edge closer to his ideal gender presentation. Of getting clever with makeup and wigs since he couldn’t rely on snapping his fingers any longer.

He stopped being able to sense the presence of another demon, or of angels, or even of humans with more than ordinary talents.

He started having to shave every other day or so.

Aziraphale changed too, in certainly subtle ways but which Crowley would have noticed regardless because he noticed everything about Aziraphale, even back in the days when he hadn't wanted to.

Aziraphale started eating and drinking less—not because he was worried about gaining weight (though he did, and Crowley loved it), but because he couldn't miracle his way out of an overfull stomach or a hangover any longer.

He had to purchase a pair of reading glasses for actual use, not merely for the aesthetic.

He only spent _most_ of the night reading instead of the entire night, and often, Crowley would wake up with Aziraphale asleep beside him, his head pillowed on the pages of his latest read.

And all the while, Crowley collected more and more feathers, white and black and black and white.

***

On the bright side, food really did taste better. They went all over England and the continent, revisiting their favorite restaurants. If they had to take a train or a plane instead of miracling themselves there, it really wasn't such a shame. Crowley fell asleep immediately on any sort of transportation managed by someone else, and if he woke, it was always with his hand in Aziraphale's or Aziraphale's fingers stroking slowly through his hair as he read. 

And maybe they couldn't snap themselves from place to place any longer, but that merely meant more time in the Bentley with Aziraphale's hand resting on his thigh or their fingers twined together on the middle console. 

***

They didn't plan to get married on the morning they woke up fully human, but things worked out that way. It wasn't like they were having some big to-do with a million people—their only guests were Newt and Anathema because they had to have witnesses and they could no longer Jedi mind trick the humans into thinking whatever they wanted—but Aziraphale had been very particular about getting their rings custom-made, and that sort of thing took time.

Plus, they couldn't miracle their way to a reservation at the Ritz any longer, so they had to wait for one to open up.

Anyway, when Crowley woke up on the morning of their wedding—and how very human that made him feel, in the best possible way—he only intended to clean his wings, the way he would have any other morning before a special event. Not that anyone was going to see his wings today, but he would know if they were tidy or not. It was the principle of the thing.

The thing was, getting his wings out these days was starting a finicky engine. It was no longer like breathing, or even like a skill. It felt... well, it felt like a trick, like Aziraphale's ridiculous black hat that he still trotted out at any opportunity. 

Plus, they were hardly the glossy, beautiful artifacts they had once been. He did his best to care for them, but they were threadbare, like a pillow with the velvet rubbed away.

And now... now, when he called them, he barely felt anything at all. 

He finally managed to get them loose, and an absolute cloud of feathers fell down around him, so many he never would have had room to keep them unless he took out an entire storage shed just for these lost pieces of himself. There was no weight on his back. There was nothing at all. 

He picked one up and turned it between numb fingers, staring at it blankly. He couldn't tell what he felt.

Aziraphale's voice sounded from the living room. "Dear, tell me when you're ready, and I'll shave you." 

When Crowley didn't answer, because he couldn't seem to process the idea of a reply, Aziraphale spoke again, his voice moving closer. "Crowley? Not still sleeping, are you? I thought I heard you—" 

He stuck his head in the room and stopped short, though he finished his sentence because Aziraphale always finished his sentences. "—get up."

He stood perfectly still for a moment, and Crowley felt the faintest stab of fear. Then, slowly as the breaking of dawn, a smile spread over Aziraphale's face. He walked over to Crowley and sat down in front of him, as though this were simply another grooming session, but when he summoned his wings, the same thing happened—a cloud of feathers around him and nothing at all on his back. 

Before he could stop himself, Crowley reached out, resting his hand against Aziraphale's spine just to be certain. Aziraphale's back was flat and unmarred beneath his hand, not even the suggestion of wing joints beneath the skin.

Aziraphale tipped his head back, still smiling as if he'd never find a reason to stop. 

"'S'official now, I guess," said Crowley, and he finally figured out what the great vast feeling inside of him was.

It was happiness.

No more looking over his shoulder. No more wondering whether their quiet life together would be interrupted. 

No more endless eternity.

Just this—their house, their bed, their _life_. Breakfast in the mornings. Supper in the evenings. Long afternoons in warm sunlight and quiet evenings in trains with sleeping cars. Nothing less and, blessedly, nothing more.

Crowley leaned forward to kiss his angel on the top of the head, pressing his cheek into Aziraphale's impossibly soft curls. "Ready to get married?"

Aziraphale twisted around so they could kiss, just gently. "Yes, darling. And I'm ready for everything else, too."


End file.
